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Forum:Cover and Appearance Descriptions: Needed or not?
This is something that's bothered me for a while now, but I hadn't touched on the topic before because we and so many other wikis do this so often that it's just become a norm. So let's get right to the point. Are "Cover" sections really needed for chapter/volume pages, and are "Appearance" sections really needed for character/location pages? '-note-' To keep track of people's opinions on the forum, I'm going to give the discussions 2 subheaders: Pros and Cons. To contribute- for example, if you think we should definitely keep the "Cover" section in chapter/volume pages, then post your argument under the Cover Section: Pros subheader. If you happen to be unsure of which side you're on but have good arguments for both sides, post an argument under both the Pros and Cons section of the discussion. 22:13, August 2, 2015 (UTC) Discussion: Cover Section (example: in Chapter and Volume articles) ''Pros Cover photos we provide in infoboxes are small and usually it's pretty hard to see everything in detail, so the cover descriptions may be of some use for readers who don't feel like zooming in on every cover photo by clicking it every time. (But honestly, it's not really that hard to click on an image on this wiki to get a closer look unless you have a super old computer.) Also, though this only applies to Volume Pages, sometimes the color cover images we provide are slightly different shades from the actual volume covers. 22:13, August 2, 2015 (UTC) Chapters have cover sections, volumes should have cover sections. Our coverage is incomplete if we ignore them. Cover section links all the characters that appear in the cover like the Chapters and Volumes page so it's easy to go to their pages. It should also mention differences between the regular cover and the inside cover. We need a section anyway due to the Volume Illustrations etc. I don't think there's any reason not to have them besides being lazy. 22:35, August 2, 2015 (UTC) Chapter covers are good because our site requires raws, how else are we supposed to know what the cover story transcript says? 23:53, August 2, 2015 (UTC) ^Kaido nailed it. 14:45, August 5, 2015 (UTC) I strongly agree with Kaido and Kage, we should keep the cover section, as they're useful to have, and as Kage said, "our coverage is incomplete if we ignore them". The only reason not to have the cover section is to make less work for the editors, which is a pretty poor excuse, and one I will not accept. 00:58, August 13, 2015 (UTC) Cons We provide all covers in chapter and volume infoboxes. Though our "Cover" sections tend to be much shorter than our "Appearance" sections, they're still just unnecessary extra work for us editors to do. As for the spine and volume illustration information provided on volume page cover sections, we can just give them their own sections since we don't add images for those in the infobox. Other misc. information such as "this volume's cover is unique because there is snow on the logo" or "the background of this chapter cover is black* can be moved to the trivia sections, and we already categorize chapters into their respective cover series categories. 22:14, August 2, 2015 (UTC) I don't really see the point for the Volume covers, because unlike the chapter covers there's no "official" description for them. Anyone can draw the same conclusions just by looking at them, and they're incredibly tedious to write. 23:53, August 2, 2015 (UTC) I'd be fine if people actually were willing to fill in and proofread these sections. But nobody is. We have tons of chapter pages with stub cover page sections too. 00:15, August 3, 2015 (UTC) Discussion: Appearance Section (example: Character and Location articles) Pros Infobox and gallery images don't always provide a perfect look at the characters and locations. Differences between manga and anime color schemes etc. are also noted in the appearance section. 22:35, August 2, 2015 (UTC) They're pretty essential. Sure, some for smaller characters are basically just written descriptions of the infobox, but for characters who change their appearance over time, we need to note that. And Kage's right, we have a lot of shitty infobox pics that don't show everything. 14:47, August 5, 2015 (UTC) Appearance sections are absolutely essential, we can't just get rid of them. We need to take note of characters who change their appearance over time, differences between the pre-timeskip appearance and the post-timeskip appearance, and as Kage and JSD said, many characters' infobox don't show everything, so we need to describe them in the appearance sections. Don't get rid of them, they're crucial. 00:55, August 13, 2015 (UTC) Cons'' We don't have to write out "Zoro has 3 swords" or "he got a scar in his eye after the timeskip" to see that Zoro has 3 swords and got a scar after the timeskip when our readers can literally take a glance at the (usually huge) image(s) we provide in the infobox and conveniently even compare pre vs post timeskip or anime vs manga appearances right there in a matter of seconds. We also provide galleries for each different outfit a character may have throughout the series, and do we really need to explain every single feature of a character when people can obviously just tell things by simply looking at the images? (Hint: no.) I personally believe the "Appearance" sections are merely there to serve the purpose of adding some bulk to shorter pages, and though they probably used to exist in the beginning to make up for the lack of images we may have had, now that we are able to make sure to provide images for every single article possible, they seem to be not only a waste of both our editors' and readers' time, but also just a place for more possible grammatical, spelling, or other errors in an article. 22:13, August 2, 2015 (UTC)